What Kind of Bird are You?

The robins have returned (well, not many) and that conjured up a thought.  Birds are pretty amazing aeronautical engineers.  Watch a bird fly; study what it does to stay aloft, glide, and land. It is really something.  There are at least10,488 species of birds according to the Audubon Society.  Who counts that up?  At our former house, we had a bird feeder just outside a large window in our family room.  I filled it with thistle, which attracted the most beautiful finchesthat the cats would lick their chops over.  The bright ones are female and the dull ones male …no revelation there.  If you were a bird, what kind would you be?  No, this isn’t some sort of psychological test to determine your sanity.  It’s just a rhetorical question.  Would you be a bluejay, an oriole, a penguin, or a hummingbird?  Maybe a pelican, a sparrow, or an ostrich?  How about a sap-sucker, a pigeon, or parrot?  Flipping me the bird is not an option for this activity. Give it some thought.  Your answer may reveal something about you…not really, I just put that in for effect.

If teachers were birds, there would be at least four types.  Peacock teachers include those who are all about the surface and enjoy strutting their stuff.  They really don’t have much below the surface, but they do look awesome!  Their classrooms are a thing of beauty and not a single thing is out of place. Nothing is out of the box. They don’t produce much in their students past the surface level.  They never get to critical thinking levels. A lot of check marks; just nothing being done with those check marks.   Sparrow teachers are all about the chatter.  They just talk and talk and talk until their students only hear the teacher from the Charlie Brown series.  Nothing sinks into the kids past the first minute.  Oh, did I mention that their tone never changes and goes on endlessly. Woodpecker teachers are all about work.  They work, take a break by working, and then return to work.  They never infuse any truly engaging tasks to their students and stand over them like a Turkish prison guard. It’s all work, work, and work.  Their students are great on skill, drill and kill…especially the latter in terms of spirit. Then, there are eagle teachers.  This is where you want to be.  Eagles build their nests high and stay there; even in a storm.  Eagle teachers set high expectations and stay there; even in a storm. Eagle teachers stand tall, they always do the right thing, and refuse to lower their standards because that would make things easier; even in a storm.  As the feathers and talons of an eagle get dirty and dull, those body parts are essentially useless.  So, they instinctively pluck their feathers out at this point to bring about the new. Eagle teachers realize when lessons aren’t going right, ditch the lesson, and find ways to make the concept relevant and useful to their students.  Be an eagle teacher.